All Activity

No thanks. Bluetooth is not reliable on set, has a delay, and would you really save time/workload handling out Comteks vs teaching people how to set things up on their phones? And then blame you when something goes wrong. Imagine trying to mix while you’re circled by people wanting you to troubleshoot…. Besides, Comtek / IFB rental income is not something any of us should want to give up. And it still works better than anything else available.

If this is your highest priority, going by brand or format probably isn't the best approach. It's very difficult to assess that kind of risk accurately on the basis of brand, especially since the underlying cells tend to be sourced elsewhere anyway. Even the with the worst brands, total meltdown is a rare, black-swan event, so there isn't really a good way of getting real data as a consumer. Only the manufacturer or maybe the FCC would have enough data to make that judgement, and even then I would have my doubts. I would start with: Chemistry. As you are aware, pretty much all lithium batteries have a risk of runaway heating if the battery gets above a certain internal temperature. It's a gradual process, and there are different stages of runaway, but the risk starts around 80°C (ballpark, and apparently quite battery-specific). The only sure way to eliminate that particular risk is to use a different chemistry. This will mean a serious trade-off in capacity and weight, but non-lithium batteries generally do not have a thermal runaway point that is inherent to the chemistry. Other chemistries are still explosive and flammable, and the non-cell components can still fail catastrophically, but the peculiar idiosyncrasy of lithium to overheat and catch fire can be avoided. You *might* still find NiCd batteries in IDX / NP1 format if you look carefully, otherwise a lead-acid chemistry may be the easiest to get hold of. I would try and find a NiMH chemistry if you can, but I've only seen this chemistry used in AA format, not larger, higher voltage battery packs. Assuming you are willing to risk lithium chemistry in the first place, and you are just trying to minimize risk, the obvious precaution is to make sure if something short-circuits in your recorder, the battery is behind a fuse so it will never see an open circuit. This basically means using a BDS system with an appropriate fuse. Next, heat is proportionate to current, and current and voltage are inversely related. If you have more voltage available, your recorder will draw less current to receive the same amount of power (wattage). So, use a battery that is near the maximum input voltage your recorder can accept (16V for the F8n if I recall correctly). In practice, the eSmart batteries (& IDX NP batteries) are nominally 14.7V, which is probably as close as you will get. Also in practice, your recorder draws so little power that heating due to current is pretty minimal, but it is something to think about if you start piling up additional equipment in your bag. External sources of heat are probably more realistic threats from a safety perspective. So, don't leave the battery in direct sunlight (or a hot car), and don't keep the battery directly next to a source of heat (i.e. your recorder). Find a way to ensure that the battery is vented so that heat that the battery creates internally while in use has somewhere to go (i.e., don't bury it in your bag and surround it with foam). If the climate you live in is exceptionally hot, that increases the risk overall Mainly, it reduces the headroom for additional heating before thermal runaway begins, so the battery can supply less power safely. See the previous paragraph: The amount of power your recorder draws on its own (and therefore the amount of heat it creates in the battery) is probably pretty low, therefore, even in a hot climate you are probably ok. Lastly, mechanical failure can create internal shorts in the battery. This is one place where brand / format / design *can* be assessed a bit more reliably. You want a battery that is physically robust. I'd say the eSmart and IDX NP batteries are both pretty good in this regard; I'd give the edge to IDX, but both are tougher than your average camera battery, and much better than some of the generic USB "power packs" that you see on Amazon. All things considered, the eSmart / IDX formats that are commonly in use are both pretty good choices compared to a more DIY approach: They are physically robust, have a voltage output that will keep current and temperature low, and they can be remoted away from the recorder as heat source via a BDS cable. Make sure your BDS is adequately fused, and you've covered most of your bases. There's probably people more paranoid than me that can think of some other modes failure to think about, but I think I've covered the big ones.

Hi John! I've been looking for this kind of clip since I bought my PS 605, but it seems they no longer sell them or are discontinued. Do you still have the file to print them so I could so I can make the most out of my harness?

I have the Accsoon CineEyes Pro. It works really well and works at a greater distances than my friend's Teradek Bolt. When I am shooting House Hunters, the producer is able to see my video feed on the second floor when I am in the basement. The other DP has a Teredek and more often than not, the producer has to be on the same floor as him in order to get a reliable signal. But, the Accsoon sometimes interferes with some Bolt receivers. I don't have a field spectrum analyser capable of scanning 2.4 or 5 so I can't tell what is what scientifically. I can recommend Accsoon. I have had my unit for 5 years. When the transmitter display backlight stopped working they replaced the hole display free of charge. Outside of warranty.

As external DC power supplies, I run my F8 on either an 'Alphasun' 26,800mAh/99Wh slimline external powerbank - I think I bought it on a crowdfunding website - which just goes on and on (its display shows its internal temperature as well as DC voltage, and whether its AC output is switched on or off), or I use an 'omnicharge' 'Omni Ultimate' (ditto pretty much everything above) with a 38,400mAh 142Wh output. It's a bit bigger, and about twice as heavy as the 'Alphasun'. Apparently, although 38,400mAh, it's acceptable on planes as it's TSA Approved. The 'Alphasun' has three outputs (1 slow USB-A, 1 fast USB-A and one USB-C), and you can choose pretty much whatever voltage you want to get out of them, from 3.6v to 21v at up to 3.5amps. The 'omnicharge' offers 5v to 20v at up to 3amps. Either will run my F8 for days. The 'Alphasun' also has an integral 5v 1amp wireless charging pad ..for phones, for example. The 'Alphasun' came with its own mains-to 19v output plug-in-the-wall charger. The 'omnicharge' can be charged with any DC source of 5v to 32v with a circular coaxial plug on it. I can't find the 'Alphasun' online anywhere, but 'omnicharge' seems to be still going strong at https://uk.omnicharge.co/collections/omnicharge-power-banks The US store is at https://www.omnicharge.co/collections/omnicharge-power-banks The 'omni ultimate+' is shown as £399.00 - or $399.00 in the US store - and appears to come with a 45w wall-plug charger. I can recommend either, or both, of them. I haven't used any other 'powerbank' DC sources with my F8.

I used many solutions, from NP1 to sony LP,USB powerbanks, V lock, 18650, even motorcycle batteries (sometimes you gotta find a solution...). with more or less safety. being able to read the temperature in your battery makes it very useful to avoid the kind of problems mentioned IMHO. As for safety circuits, im not sure but Antoine Malnati from Audioroot or @Andrew From Deity could surely answer this. I use esmart batteries since audioroot 1st gen and would never change to any other system now. I flewn all over the world with it and the weight/space/effiency ratio is unbeatable, would love seeing a 50wH semi battery from deity tho... as for powering a bigger workflow cart based, i'm eying the AC powerstations such as ecoflow

I second IDX lithium batteries. They’re very high quality, have many safety features built in and have never let me down. Not a smart battery but just change it out before the voltage dives too low and you’ll be smart enough.

I'll counter that by adding that I have been using IDX batteries exclusively since...well...as far as i can remember in my sound mixing career - let's say decades. I haven't used anything else. Obviously my BDS has changed from basic spliced cables and multipliers, to newer BDS designed for "smart" batteries but only using them for capacity telemetry and not the bells and whistles it offers. I've never had an IDX NP style battery fail me, ever. Sure, some have lost their charge but that is an expected outcome to constant use. I have had issues with V-mounts, but most here don't use that especially if you air travel. Take that with a grain of salt. Smart batteries are great, I see how they have a place in our workflow.

These batteries were originally designed for medical applications and as such can be considered to be quite reliable. One of several elements of telemetry you can monitor in real time while using these cells is temperature. Additionally, certain smart battery chargers will display the amount of power cycles on each battery. This data is useful to determine the health and performance of a battery. As far as I know, all lithium ion battery systems have some risk of overheating, swelling or in rare cases exploding. However, as an operator you can practice due diligence by monitoring battery health as well as examining them for any physical deviations or defects before use. Additionally, care should be taken when transporting batteries. For what it’s worth, I’ve used smart battery systems for 7 years and have experienced no battery failures or questionable situations whatsoever. However, I would never go into a production without several backups in case one of them failed. My view is that they are worth the purchase price.

Chicken out? No, you were smart to leave a good job alone. A nice job like that tends to indicate they know what they are doing and did it properly.

I'm an audio guy, and I'm looking for an external DC power system for my F8n field recorder. Since the field is littered with various styles & types of Lithium-Ion batteries, my first concern is "How do I pick one that minimize the inherent risk of the battery overheating, or worse yet, going up in flames?" I'm thinking of all the videos I've seen that show someone's cell phone igniting the cup-holder in the owner's brand new Lexus, or the flight attendant's failing attempts to stamp out a laptop fire in the aisle of a packed airliner. All in the name of the Lithium-Ion battery. So, enter the "Smart" Batteries: the Deity S-95, and the Remote Audio HiQ 98 are good examples. These two have additional built-in circuits that allow attached devices to show telemetry data (on compatible devices, of course). But is this info used to automatically protect the battery, or is it the user's responsibility to read the info and act accordingly to save the battery? If it's the former, then that would justify the higher price, IMO. I guess I've got a lot to learn about "Smart" Batteries".....

So, I did exactly that to the XLR-F connector at the pole top. It revealed the 3 wires, and the neatest shrink-wrapping job I've ever seen. So tidy in fact that I was not able to see any of the solder-points, the wire colors, or whether or not there was a shield. I didn't want to start stripping back the cable's insulation, so I reassembled the connector. Yes, I chickened out. You can all laugh now....

Our amazing utility figured out the way the Accsoon SE works is that you can select the 5GHz channel with the side wheel control but it will just select a 2.4GHz channel on its own on boot up and there’s no way to lock it on a certain 2.4 freq. But we don’t think that it frequency hops once it’s up and linked so it should be possible to work with other systems. The Accsoon user manuals are mostly useless. These are so cheap and work well enough that everyone seems to have their own now including video assist and script. Don’t leave your BNC at home though…

I use the Accsoon Cineview transmitter which has both 2.4 and 5g. I can hard set a channel on my transmitter which I normally park towards the upper end of the spectrum. I also have an amp which boosts the signal even more for those frequency hoping pieces of camera gear. I park my Zaxcom Zaxnet signal at 2475, with antenna and amp and let camera know to go no where near it as they will not win that battle. If they don't want me to run wireless I just say then provide me with a signal from "Insert wireless system they have, Q-take, Teradek etc"... Otherwise sorry.. Also, electric has recently joined the battle for frequency dominance and enjoy throwing these illegal, high power overseas WIFI boosters that will oblitirate anything on or near it's channel.. Really good fun..

For years I've been hardlining my video feed to my cart, not wanting to get into the every changing wireless video and congested 2.4Ghz 5G frequencies used on busy sets. Many Sound Mixers I've worked with have tried to purchase wireless video solutions (Vaxxis, Hollyland, etc.) to be told be camera to turn them off because they think it's interfering with their equipment (which it very well might be if it's frequency hopping). I'm pretty new to 2.4Ghz/5GHz on set as none of my current equipment runs on these bands, so here's my question: I just purchased a DJI SDR Transmission Combo, with the understanding that the bandwidth it transmits is much lower then a Teradek/Vaxxis system (although lower res then what camera transmits which is fine for a Sound Mixer). On the DJI, I can set it to a 2.4Ghz frequency and turn off frequency hopping so it's not competing with the Teradeks for frequencys. All the camera equipment on our set is operating on 5G, if I have a frequency set in the 2.4 range, can it cause interference with their equipment in 5G? I've tried doing some research but haven't found an appropriate answer. Thanks, Jesse

It looks interesting and I see Listentech has some Auracast gear available but until Apple gets on board with Auracast it won’t be very useful for us. And who knows how long that could take. Apple tends to drag their feet and kick and scream before implementing technology that they didn’t come up with themselves especially if they have competing or similar systems already in place. Look how long it took for them to put USB3 on a Mac. In the meantime, I would have zero interest in providing and maintaining compatible Bluetooth receivers or earbuds for people. I could see setting up an Auracast transmitter at the village and have it be strictly BYOD self serve kinda thing. It could be nice to take the load off of providing individual Comteks and headphones to all the random people that show up. Not only in teens of equipment but also work load for the sound utility keeping track of them all. … Again if it doesn’t work with Apple then this is all moot for us. I would be very curious to try it on set and see what kind of range it’s able to achieve, how bad the latency is and if it interferes with other wireless systems already in use. Either way, it probably wont be up to us for long if Auracast becomes common-use and people come to expect it.

looks like we could have more battery life after this kit installation : check out the video from raycom youtube channel i quote Andy Clements when i asked about the battery models (on instagram on the post of raycom_uk account) source:

Not to forget EK 3241

https://jwsoundgroup.net/index.php?/topic/66912-spectera/#comment-526118

Hi Folks, just putting out feelers if anyone is using this technology for iem’s and how might they be getting along?

Chile has a 10mW limit for devices of this type.

真好看 ！ Normally I'd think twice about a redesign for a Nagra, but if I had a V I'd definitely be looking to do just this to it. Very nice work indeed. I'll look forward to the write up. Jez

Thanks! I just power it externally now. Plenty of choices with longer lasting modern batteries. I have either a v-mount belt clip or a small pouch on a belt. Had to design a backpack so that it could stand on its own like in original design.

A star knob. I could send you one.

Wow looks amazing! Nice work. Is there any internal battery now or do you just power it externally?